PCA Forums

With regard to the thread just below on my new system specs I was told that I should stay away from VIA based boards in another forum. Here no-one mentioned it. The board I was looking at is a K8V-X by Asus.

I used to have a couple of VIAs and there were some problems with them, but that was years ago. Should I revise my motherboard choice?

If I choose an nforce4 board does this mean I also need a PCI E card? Does this mean that AGP should not be bought anymore?

The previous thread on my system specs can be found here:

http://www.pcabusers.com/forums/showthr ... adid=40957

Cheers

KC

Well I missed your other post, but let me reply now.

First of all you're wasting money buying a socket 754 mobo. I would recommend a socket 939 mobo. Why? Most 939 mobos are dual-core compatible. You want a substantial performance upgrade next year without breaking the bank? Swap out the CPU for a dual core.

That said I would also recommend an nForce4 mobo over VIA. VIA mobos are fine, but they occasionally have their isues. The last 3 mobos I've owned were nForce and they were rock solid.

The K8V-X is a budget mobo.

I can highly recommend the Asus A8N-E. This mobo is dual-core capable. I just built a new LAN party rig around this mobo and it's a rock. Absolutely no problems with the build.

It's pricier, but worth it. Don't short change yourself.

Thanks FP, good to see you still around here This forum (after Voodooextreme went down years ago) has been my main source of information when building a new rig for as log as I can remember. Good to see that all the contributors are still active here after all these years!!

What you say goes in line with what people commented on my Hardware board at MAMEWorld (http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sh ... #Post42679)

So I'm now looking at a socket 939 (exactly the model you mention) and a decent Radeon which is affordable. Maybe an X800 Pro, something in that range.

Thanks for the tips!

KC

Also a secondary note, no Socket 754 boards are capable of Dual-Channel memory, but Socket 939 boards are (its more of a processor limitation) I own both Via and Nforce boards, Via is better then before, but Nforce is just better for gaming, though I would give Via the points for better I/O performance.

Don't get cheap which is important, better to pay more and get more features and better quality, then to pay less and upgrade later for the features and/or replace it cause it failed.

I would spend the money on the mobo and the vid card and if money is tight, keep the CPU reasonable. My LAN rig is running an Athlon64 3200+, 1Gb with a Radeon x700 Pro and it's got all the power I need. It ran BF2 at the last LAN I attended just fine which is probably the game that will put the biggest hurt on your system right now.

I'd say the price performance sweet spot right now is the 3000+

Just assume that in 8 - 12 months you'll be upgrading to dual core anyway which will be a painless upgrade.

Sounds perfect, a 3200+ is what my budget was aimed at. Indeed I'll spenbd a little more on the board and make sure it's spot on. Vid card will prolly be a Radeon x800 pro or something similar.

I am in the south of Spain so i don't always have acces to exactly the model I'm looking for but I'll get as colse as possible to this.

Then indeed, processor upgrade and if need be a new vid card in 1 years time will be painless.

Thanks again for all the help!

KC

I wish I still had some contacts on the base in Rota, might have been able to help you with some shipping..

FlyingPenguin is right about the socket 754. The reason I bough a 754 was because I said yeah I could always upgrade to a 64 and now I realize I wont even need to upgrade to a 64. If I was gonna stick with a sempron I should have gotten a Socket A board and an Athlon. Damn I was stupid!

Hey ego, I remember you were mentioning being stationed at Rota last time I posted. Went to the beach there a coupld of months ago...nice place

Greetings from Andalucia!

KC

travis, beihg a 64bit process means NOTHING! the a64 is just a far better chip then an older athlon.

Greg